By Prof. Rebecca Hanlin, African Centre of Technology Studies (ACTS)/ University of Johannesburg

When we think of match-making, I expect many of us think about online dating websites or mothers’ setting up their children with ‘appropriate’ potential future spouses.  However, the concept of match-making has moved in recent years into the business sector. 

Trade missions often run matching services between businesses in different countries while government enterprise departments or business associations run matching services for businesses from different sectors.  Traditionally, such efforts have been conducted face-to-face but, just as in the dating world, these activities are increasingly moving online. 

In Kenya business match-making regularly takes place through Chambers of Commerce (e.g., the American Chamber of Commerce runs a matching service between Kenyan and US businesses), while companies like B2B consulting in Kenya help match companies together (B2B standing for ‘business to business’).  Some of this is sectoral, and so, in the agriculture space, Innovation Norway ran a business match-making service in 2020 to bring together companies in the agri-tech space from different African and European countries together.

In a similar vein, the TransCIIT project has run a match-making pilot to assist Kenyan climate innovation entrepreneurs meet and work with talented Kenyan students who are looking for practical experience and can fill gaps in the knowledge and expertise needed by entrepreneurs.  Details of the project are outlined in one the project blogs available here.

The student-entrepreneur match-making service is not the first of its kind.  If you Google ‘student entrepreneur match-making’ several articles come up about programmes set up in the US in particular.  However, if you Google this and add the words ‘Africa’, ‘Kenya’ or ‘South Africa’ very little comes up.  Similar services e.g., Harambee in South Africa or the Digital Skills for an Innovative East African Industry programme, are focused mostly on getting young people into jobs. 

The TransCIIT project does this i.e., helps young people with their employability either through getting work experience in the case of the students or working towards making entrepreneurs’ businesses more viable and sustainable.  However, it is also unique in that it is focused more on students when they are students and not waiting until they have finished their studies.  It is also focused on Masters’ students and not undergraduate students.  Specifically, the project focuses on supporting the students with opportunities for practical experimentation with the skills they have learnt in the classroom.  Despite a lot of rhetoric to the contrary, many university degree programmes on the African continent are still too heavily focused on theory and insufficiently focused on the practical application of theory.    

At the same time, the project is focused on providing entrepreneurs with the opportunity to fill gaps in their businesses.  Students have worked with entrepreneurs to build systems (be they related to accounting, business plans or social media strategies) that can be progressed after the student has returned back to their studies.  As such, this project has resulted in two-way learning: student to entrepreneur and entrepreneur to student.

Just like the dating world, the project has also moved the match-making process for the future online.  The project team have worked with an IT consultant to develop a matching website which allows students to submit their expertise profiles and entrepreneurs to post their business dilemmas/ needs.  Students and entrepreneurs then self-match if one party identifies a skill that they need or dilemma they can solve. 

As this current project draws to a close the website is left as a legacy of the project. It is hoped that existing partners, Kenya Climate Innovation Centre (KCIC) and Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST), will continue to use it to match students and entrepreneurs together.  In South Africa, project partners are also investigating how they can utilise the match-making service website. 

Just as the Netflix show, Indian Matchmakers, has bought into focus and debate match-making in the dating world, we are pleased that the TransCIIT project has allowed us to bring to the fore the potential of student-entrepreneur match-making in the business world.